Assign External Users full Office 365 Licenses?

[Jason Armenise]

Is it possible to assign a license of Office 365 to an external user?  It is possible within the Office admin center and the AAD admin portal to assign a 'guest' a license.  However while it does assign them a license it appears they aren't able to use that license.  I've tried this with a guest authenticated through MSA and a guest from another valid AAD tenant (neither had their own Office 365 license).  

So is it possible to assign the license to an external user have them use the license?  I suspect no, but then why does it support assigning those licenses in both Office Admin Center and AAD Portal?  

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Jason Armenise

Thanks for the question! Unfortunately, no. See article

https://www.petri.com/adding-subscription-external-office-365-user

You can physically assign a licence to an external user but it’s not supported. You will want to refer to the official docs on adding B2B users/guests

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/b2b/add-users-administrator

Hope that answers your question!

Best, Chris

[#3]

Why do you want to assign a license? Technically it is possible, you can even create a mailbox for such users, but you have to play with the account properties a bit. Or you can make it a GA for that matter.

[#4]

@Christopher Hoard 

Thank you!  That's what I assumed, just wanted to know if it was a bug or a not.  Cheers!

[#5]

Thanks Christopher! To confirm, can you use Office Admin and AAD Portal to assign ANY usable license to an external user? E.g. Teams?

[#6]

No problem! I am not aware of any limits, but unfortunately - and returning to the original point above - it isn’t officially supported so I would not be surprised if you ran into an issue trying to assign a particular licence to an external user in terms of applying the licence or functionality

Best, Chris

[#7]

@Christopher Hoard 

Are you sure, it's still not officially supported?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/manage/assign-licenses-to-users?view=o365-world...

Assign a license to a guest user

You can invite guest users to collaborate with your organization in Azure Active directory admin center. To learn about guess users, see What is guest user access in Azure Active Directory B2B? If you don't have any guest users, see Quickstart: Add guest users to your directory in the Azure portal.

 Important

You must be a Global admin to do these steps.

1. Go to the Azure Active Directory admin center
2. In the navigation pane, select Users.
3. On the Users | All Users (Preview) page, select Add filters.
4. In the Pick a field menu, choose User type, then select Apply.
5. In the next menu, select Guest.
6. In the list of results, select the user who needs a license.
7. Under Manage, select Licenses.
8. Select Assignments.
9. On the Update license assignments page, select the product you want to assign a license for.
10. On the right, clear the check boxes for any services you don't want the guest user to have access to.
11. Select Save.

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This sounds as it would be supported...?